Google Implements Stricter Criteria for YouTube Monetization

Google is implementing stricter criteria for YouTube users to meet before they’re eligible to run ads on videos.

YouTube’s Partner Program allows content creators to make money by placing ads alongside their videos. To qualify for the partner program, YouTube users had to meet a previous threshold of 10,000 total views.

Now there are entirely new requirements to meet, which will apply to both new and existing members of the YouTube Partner Program. Total views no longer matter. Channels now need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months before being able to display ads.

”It’s been clear over the last few months that we need the right requirements and better signals to identify the channels that have earned the right to run ads. Instead of basing acceptance purely on views, we want to take channel size, audience engagement, and creator behavior into consideration to determine eligibility for ads.”

These requirements are now in place for new applicants to the YouTube Partner Program, and will be enforced for existing members as of February 20, 2018.

In addition to measuring these new metrics, Google will be monitoring negative signals such as community strikes, spam, and other abuse flags. If a channel is found to be “repeatedly or egregiously” violating Google’s community guidelines then it will be removed from the YouTube Partner Program.

Google believes these new user signals are harder-to-game, and thus will prevent bad actors from being able to monetize unsuitable content. This will affect many existing channels, but the ones still eligible to run ads account for over 95% of total reach for advertisers.